Love to Learn

Not too long ago I was an emcee at a conference in Florida and it was great. There were three interesting speakers—Craig Groeschel, who founded Lifechurch.tv, Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church near Atlanta, and then we had the famous author Patrick Lencioni.

I learned a lot from these guys. It was so interesting – all three of them talked about ego issues.

* Craig talked about how a lot of people have fear and let that fear stop them. He said you need to push through the pain and do what’s right.

* Patrick Lencioni has a new book called “Getting Naked,” which is all about being vulnerable. He thinks people in business shouldn’t try to act as if they’re perfect – people will really admire that. Colleen Barrett from Southwest Airlines has also said that people admire your strengths, but they love your vulnerability.

* And then Andy Stanley talked about how if you do less and delegate more, you are going to get a lot more accomplished. A lot of times people try to achieve things beyond their abilities because they are afraid to delegate to other people. That’s when you end up trying to do everything—and of course you’re going to fall short. Then you’re in trouble.

That sounds like the fear of false pride – where you think more of yourself than you should, and you don’t want to appear vulnerable. The other fear is where you have self doubt – and think less of yourself than you should. This really reinforces the importance of our whole self leadership program—really effective leadership starts from the inside. It starts with you, whether you’re trying to influence kids at home, or coworkers, or as a manager with your people, or what have you. It’s so important that you know who you are, and that you realize that you are NOT your performance or the opinion of others. You can do what’s right. You can also share and be vulnerable. When you make a mistake, you can push through fear.

I just love learning. Make sure this week to learn a lot. Maybe there’s still time today to learn something!